


Silenced

by todisturbtheuniverse



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Dragon Age Kink Meme, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Smut, Templar Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:57:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/todisturbtheuniverse/pseuds/todisturbtheuniverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for a kink meme prompt: Warden!Bethany has a (possibly unhealthy?) Templar kink, and gets off hard on having her magic Silenced/mana drained while in flagrante.</p><p>The first time was an accident. The second and third times, however, were <i>not</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silenced

The first time was an accident.

Well, it wasn’t the first time—of course it wasn’t. Bethany had been Silenced before, in Kirkwall. Marian had often left her at Gamlen’s when there was a chance they would encounter templars on the job, but it was Kirkwall, and there were a lot of templars. They showed up in the strangest places.

It was the first time she’d been Silenced by someone she  _knew_ , then. By someone she trusted.

They were clearing tunnels in the Deep Roads—a particular specialty of her unit. Other units took one week on and two off, but not hers. They stayed in the Deep Roads for weeks at a time, exploring the places that maps had forgotten, driving the darkspawn back. It was a blessed relief to return to the Vigil, because they were never sure they  _would_  return.

Down here, fighting was claustrophobic. Not so different from Lowtown, except there were well-armed soldiers between her and the enemy’s blades. Marian had never been particularly well-armed.

Alistair led the charge. His bellows reached her, even as removed from the confrontation as she was. She stretched out her staff, heartwood blazing beneath her fingers, and rained fire down on the first of the approaching horde. After so long in the Deep Roads, her fellow Wardens struggled to so much as  _hurrah_  for her efforts.

It cost her, too. The Deep sapped all their strength, but she was running very low indeed after weeks of this, eating only rations and walking until her back and feet ached.

They were winning, though, every man and woman in their unit choosing their targets and eliminating them with admirable precision, until the Emissary arrived on the field.

She saw the look in its piggy eyes as it sought their leader. Alistair wasn’t watching—occupied with a group of genlocks, he didn’t see the darkspawn on his flank, the nasty green spell glowing up on its twisted staff. Bethany moved without warning, darting through a path left by their broken line, trying to get close enough to cast. She could interrupt the spell with enough force. She drew on her reserves as she moved, coaxing electricity to life in her hands and her staff.

And then, just as she was about to release the bolt and fry the maggot where it stood, her power left her. The crackle of lightning died in her hands.

She turned, disbelieving, just in time to see the horrified look on Alistair’s face, the genlocks dead at his feet. She could deduce easily enough what had happened; he’d sensed the Emissary, a foe that overpowered her presence, and he’d cast Silence without a second look, expecting that the only mage in his unit was well back.

Someone shouted, and when she turned around again, the Emissary was dead, one of Nathaniel’s arrows buried in its eye. The battle was done.

"Bethany, I’m so sorry." His voice, wrought with apology, pulled at the vacuum in her chest. She gasped, drawing in air, and instinctively reached for magic that wasn’t there. She could feel it now, the fragile  _lack_  of something that tied a templar to the mage he chained, and she could not even pull to break free.

His hands touched her shoulders; he had closed the distance between them without her noticing. Her muscles jerked at the touch. Her stomach wrenched. Something deep in her groin  _pulled_ , pleasure bordering on pain. She could feel the heat rising to her cheeks, but the sensation left her speechless, her throat incapable of producing words to reassure him.

"It will wear off in a moment," he said, bending a little to look her in the face. "Bethany? Try to breathe."

She did as he said, letting in a billow of musty air. It did nothing to quell the heartbeat in her throat, but she felt less like she might faint.

As soon as the flame of her magic rekindled inside her, she wondered how she might get him to do it again.

* * *

The second time was not an accident.

It didn’t happen during battle, either. That was a surefire way to get herself—and her fellow Wardens—killed. If she was going to pursue this, she would at least do it  _safely_. Or more safely, anyway. She didn’t know if there was anything particularly safe or particularly  _smart_  about purposefully allowing herself to be Silenced.

In the handful of empty moments she had—usually right before falling asleep, or in the bit of free time she used to keep up her armor and staff—she thought back to that deep absence and shivered. There had never been anything particularly appealing about being cut off from her magic before; it was, after all, her only weapon. She’d hated it at times, of course. An apostate always did. The panic of being cut off from it, though, from her only source of defense, usually overwhelmed that hatred.

Panic was decidedly  _not_  what she’d felt on the field the week before. She couldn’t admit to herself what she  _did_  feel. She told herself that she wasn’t sure, that it needed further testing.

Back at the Vigil for the first time in weeks, her unit rested. They devoted a few hours per day to sparring, but otherwise, their time was their own. On the second day, she made her way to the practice yard with her heart in her throat. As luck would have it, Alistair was already there.

He was not the only one; he faced off against Velanna. Oghren sat on the sidelines, watching closely. Bethany kept her distance, watching the easy trade of spells and blows. Velanna fought with a different style than Bethany, one that involved much less swinging of her staff. For a moment, she forgot her purpose in coming here, content to watch the elegant weave of another’s magic.

The spell broke when Alistair pushed past the gnarled roots Velanna had called and knocked her to the ground with a sweep of his shield. Even with the point of his sword at her throat, she rolled her eyes at him. “I yield,” she grumbled. “Help me up.”

To his credit, Alistair did not laugh, but he might have been afraid to invoke Velanna’s ire. She staggered off to the crates and seated herself upwind of Oghren while Alistair removed his shield and shook out his arm.

That was Bethany’s cue. She stepped into the space Velanna had vacated, taking her staff in hand. “Can you go another round, Commander?” she asked, smiling.

Oghren guffawed. Velanna swatted her hand in his direction, and he toppled off his crate, a bit of ice in his beard.

Alistair slid his shield back onto his arm, a little red in the face. “If you promise to go easy on me,” he said, lifting his sword.

She would not go easy on him. He wouldn’t attempt to Silence her unless he was under duress, so she called up her reserves—stronger now, thanks to a day of rest—and caught him in a Fist of the Maker before he could move forward. Armored as he was, she could barely lift him a few inches off the ground, but when she slammed downward, his knees buckled.

"Maker," he swore, struggling up from his knees. "What is your definition of  _easy_?”

Bethany heard Velanna’s surprised laugh. Before Alistair could move forward, she cast again, throwing a wave of ice up from the ground. He backed away quickly enough that it didn’t touch him, but it accomplished her goal; if he couldn’t get closer, he would be forced to defend himself from afar, and that meant stunning her long enough to  _get_  close.

He didn’t try Silence right away, though. He bellowed a war cry and the wave hit her hard enough to stagger, but she was not a force mage for nothing. She recovered before he’d gone five paces and cast a telekinetic burst that threw him back.

Oghren, still on the ground, cheered. They all loved their Commander, but were not averse to seeing him take a beating once in a while.

Before Alistair could get all the way to his feet, Bethany threw an abyss at his ankles. Down he went again, swearing. On his knees, he lifted two fingers to his temple.

Silence muffled everything: the clatter of weapons, the call of voices, the clank of his armor as he finally, finally got to his feet. She took a deep breath, tugging at her cut strings. Her magic didn’t answer. She could cast some rudimentary attack—there was a trickle of her mana left for that—but her arms were heavy with the weight of her chains as she lifted her staff, preparing to make an  _appearance_  of an effort. It was hard to care, with her head so fogged by bliss.

On his feet now, Alistair cleansed the field, removing all evidence of her magic. She threw a weak arcane bolt in his direction, and, predictably, he shrugged it off; it did nothing at all to slow his stride. She cast again, and he did not falter. The weak tug on her bonds swept a fresh wave of pleasure through her, leaving her chest tight, her muscles quivering. He was close enough to take a swipe at with her staff, so she did. His shield knocked it aside, and then he knocked her to the ground.

At his feet, she stared up at him, gasping for breath. The point of his sword was at her throat. She waited for panic, for fear, and felt nothing but a foggy, directionless lust. She pushed at the wall that kept her from her magic—it wouldn’t last much longer, now—and gasped at the resistance, muddled by the heat sweeping through her.

A muscle in Alistair’s jaw jumped, as though he’d felt her attempt to regain control. “Yield,” he ordered, in a voice she’d rarely heard him use on her: steel and thunder, brooking no argument. It did nothing to abate the ferocity of her desire.

She cleared her throat, fingers tightening on her staff. “I yield,” she croaked.

The bonds fell away, leaving her bereft, and for a moment, she considered renewing her attack. At the look on his face, though, she loosened her hold on her staff. He removed his sword from her throat and reached down to help her up.

She met his narrowed eyes with what she hoped was a perfectly innocent expression, heart hammering. When he spoke again, his voice was low enough that it wouldn’t carry to Velanna and Oghren. “See me after supper,” he said—in no less firm a tone than he’d used a moment ago—and strode away.

Bethany didn’t dare look at their audience; instead, ducking her head to hide her blush, she made for the Vigil’s curtain wall, planning to walk the heights until the fiercely cool breeze put her back in her right mind.

* * *

It was hard to eat that evening.

Bethany forced herself to put food in her mouth—chew, swallow, repeat. She noted that Alistair was not present. Their meeting loomed over her like a sword, ready to cut. Her hands trembled at the thought. She was sufficiently afraid now. Afraid of embarrassment, humiliation. What if he had guessed? Worse, what if he  _knew_?

The others probably thought nothing of that morning’s events. She and Alistair were widely known to be friendly—they had worked together for years now, after all—and there were other rumors, too, the ones that suggested they were  _too_  friendly. Sometimes her cheeks still burned to hear them, but mostly, she laughed the idle gossip off. If she had a greater interest in Alistair—or if he had a greater interest in her—that was their business.

Business that might well be concluded before it even began if this damned meeting went awry.

Velanna, who rarely had a kind word for anyone, seated herself across the table from Bethany and jabbed a fork in her direction. “You put up a fight this morning,” she said, a note of approval in her voice. “Your force magic has come a long way. I’ve never seen another mage get his boots off the ground.”

Bethany smiled, a little of her appetite returning to her. “I was surprised, myself,” she confessed.

Sigrun swung onto the bench beside Velanna. Velanna, who had endured this particular mannerism of the dwarf’s for several years, did not so much as flinch at the way the bench bowed in response.

"I heard it was a good fight," Sigrun said.

Bethany nodded, stuffing her mouth with potatoes to avoid elaborating.

"If he didn’t have that blighted templar training, you would have had him," Velanna agreed, digging into her own food.

"I think there’s a templar in the new  _Hard in Hightown_ ,” Sigrun said thoughtfully. Bethany narrowly avoided choking.

"Are you still reading that rubbish?" Velanna scoffed.

Sigrun elbowed her in the side. “One of them is missing, and I know a mage who is not as sneaky as she thinks she is.”

It was a rare event to see Velanna blush; Sigrun and Bethany laughed around their mouthfuls of food, and for a while, she forgot all about Alistair and ominous meetings.

When supper ended, though, she had no choice; he was her commanding officer, and if he’d asked for her to stop by, she could not exactly disobey. She dropped her dishes in the kitchen, waved goodbye to Sigrun and Velanna, and made for the stairs to the Vigil’s third floor, where Alistair kept his study and quarters.

It was a lonely, anxious walk without even her staff on her back or her familiar silver-and-blue mail to protect her. She usually went without either inside the Vigil, just like her fellow Wardens. True, she and Velanna were never without their magic, and Sigrun always had a knife hidden on her somewhere, but it was rare that they were allowed to shed their uniforms and weapons entirely. Usually, she did so with relief; now, with only boots, tunic, and leggings between her and the castle’s chill, she just felt exposed.

The door to Alistair’s study was half-open. She paused just outside and took a deep breath, attempting to arrange her face in a neutral expression.  _It will be fine_ , she told herself, though she didn’t really believe it.  _He can’t possibly know anything I haven’t told him._

With that grim hope, she pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the lamplight.

Alistair was hunched over his desk, stacks of reports spread out in front of him. Half his dinner was still on his plate, but she could tell that the food had gone cold. She suppressed a smile; there were times when Alistair grumbled about his commission, but there were other times when it was perfectly clear that he meant none of it.

"Is this a bad time, Commander?" she asked.

He looked up, eyes slightly unfocused, but then his gaze found her. “No, no, no,” he said, getting to his feet and moving around the desk. “The reports will keep. And you don’t have to call me that here, as you well know.” He brushed past her—the touch made her stomach flutter, just a little—and shut the door.

Well, that didn’t bode well.

She crushed the wave of panic threatening to drown her and composed herself before he turned to face her again, frowning.

"What was that this morning?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest.

She did her best not to mirror the gesture. “What do you mean?” she replied, thankful that her voice stayed even.

"Were you  _trying_  to kill me?” he elaborated, not without humor.

"Of course not."  _He doesn’t know_ , she thought, almost giddy with relief.  _He’s no idea_. “We were sparring.”

He cocked his head to the side. “You’re usually much more adept at following instructions,” he said. “I said  _go easy on me_ , and you proceeded to unleash the bloody  _Void_  on me.”

She swallowed. “I’m sorry. It’s just—we’ve been in the Deep Roads so long. I guess I felt a bit restless after a day of doing nothing, that’s all.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is it?”

She reminded herself that, tempting as it was, she could not step back. There was a desk not a pace behind her. There was nowhere to go.

"Of course," she repeated. "What else would it be?"

He let his arms fall; briefly, her eyes tracked the movement. He was out of armor for the day, too, though his sword and shield were well within reach on their stand just inside the door. She wondered how she would fare against him without her staff.

"You’re not angry with me, are you?" he asked. His voice had softened. "Because of what happened with that Emissary? I swear it was an accident. That probably doesn’t help, but—"

She shook her head, too hard, too fast. “I know it was. I’m not angry.” Her voice was too bright; she winced at the sound.

He watched her closely. “You’re sure? I can’t imagine what it’s like, of course, but I can try. I wouldn’t react well if one of my friends knocked my sword out of my hand without warning.”

"It was an accident." Her mouth had gone dry. "It’s happened before—not on accident, obviously, but I can handle it. I shouldn’t have been in the way."

He smiled. She hated the crinkles at the corner of his eyes, the way his gaze warmed as it rested on her. It did not inspire her to remain particularly resolute, and if she softened her defense, she would surely let something slip.

"You were protecting me," he said, taking a step nearer. "I can hardly fault you for that."

She laughed, because she didn’t know what else to say.

"What was this morning, then?" he pressed. Damn him. Like a mabari with a bone, he wasn’t going to drop it. "And don’t give me that  _restless_  line again. Usually you’re out like a light for a few days after a mission, not itching for a sparring match.”

She looked away, frantically searching for a reason. Any reason.  _Where’s Varric when you need him?_  she despaired. He could talk his way out of this. He could talk his way out of anything.

"Bethany." He was standing right in front of her now, concern softening his brow. He hooked a finger beneath her chin and forced her to look up at him. "You can tell me."

She cleared her throat. “Uhm.”  _Not the truth_ , she thought, but as if she’d lost complete control over herself, her lips spoke words they did not have permission for. “I had a…strange…reaction to Silence, when it hit me in the Deep Roads. It had never happened before. I…wanted to test it.”

"You could have asked," he pointed out. "I have  _bruises_  from that Fist, you know. Provocation was not necessary.”

"I’m sorry," she said again, lifting a hand. "I can heal that, you know. You should have asked."

He caught her hand in his. “You’re deflecting,” he said. The proximity of his body—looming over hers—was remarkably distracting. “What was the reaction?”

She blushed, loathing her pale skin for every bit of it that betrayed her. “You’ll laugh,” she confessed. “Or worse! Maker, it’s embarrassing. And  _wrong_.”

She could see how hard he was fighting a smile. She was certain it was not mean-spirited—he just liked to tease.

"Was it something steamy?" he asked. It was clear he meant it was a joke. "I think I’d like to know if it was something steamy."

She ducked her head, flexing her fingers uselessly in his, and waited.

There was a short pause, and then a soft “ _Oh_.”

This time, he didn’t attempt to make her look at him. He let her hand go. She avoided his gaze while he stared down at her, obviously puzzled.

"And that’s never happened before?" he said, as though this was a clinic and he was asking,  _Does it hurt **here**?_

"No," she said, looking over his shoulder. Her eyes found his sword, and she stared at that rather than at him. "I’ve been Silenced before, obviously."

"Obviously," he echoed, though there was a touch of distaste in his voice now.

"It’s never provoked…that…reaction, is what I meant," she said uselessly. "I don’t—I don’t like my magic, but I don’t like being cut off from it, either. Except. Except when you do the cutting, I guess." She shrugged.

"You don’t like your magic?" He sounded a little disbelieving, enough to make her look at him again.

"Of course not," she said, frowning. "Who would? If I hadn’t joined the Grey Wardens, I’d have been an apostate till I died. I was a risk to everyone who knew about my magic. The best I could hope for was that, if I  _did_  get caught, the templars wouldn’t hurt my family when they dragged me away.”

He winced. “It’s a miracle you tolerate me at all.”

She snorted. “Hardly. I don’t think of templars when I think of you. Except for the last week, I suppose. Maker.” She pressed her face into her hands, finally leaning back against his desk. Wilting, more like. “This is humiliating.”

"Why?" he asked, as though he didn’t  _know_.

"Why do you  _think_?” she demanded of his boots. “What sort of mage gets…gets off…on being stripped of their only weapon?”

Strong fingers wrapped around her wrists; he pulled her hands away from her face. “Strictly speaking, that’s not what’s happening here,” he told her.

She shot a brief glare upward. “What  _is_ , then?”

"You said yourself that it’s never happened before. It’s something to do with me. So." He cleared his throat. "Do you trust me?"

Her brow furrowed. “Of course.”

He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “And you know I would never Silence you for…malicious reasons, let’s call it. I would never hurt you when you’re without your only weapon.”

"I know."

Slowly—she could stop him, so easily, before this even began—he raised a hand to his temple. Her reserves churned inside her, as though her magic knew what was about to happen when she was still scrambling to catch up.

"Tell me," he said, his voice like a warm ocean current, towing her swiftly away from shore, "if you want to stop."

She shook her head, and the light inside her went out.

* * *

A long time ago, in Gwaren, she’d taken off her boots and walked in the surf while they waited for their ship. The cold sting of it numbed her halfway up her calves. Even the lowest depths were strong enough to half-bury her feet in the sand as the tide rushed out.

At the time, she had imagined what would happen if she waded into the ocean until she was waist-deep, chest-deep—until her feet had no purchase at all to root her to the earth. Now, she imagined it was something like being Silenced.

She listed back against the desk, half-stunned, and Alistair wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her upright, drawing their bodies together. When she inhaled, the scent of him washed in and enveloped her: leather, sweat, a hint of soap, a hint of mud. All very Fereldan. Kirkwall was so long ago, but sometimes, that year in the Free Marches seemed to have lasted decades.

She lifted her chin to find him watching her. He was much  _closer_  than she’d imagined, somehow. She drew a ragged breath, reaching up to hold onto his shoulders, searching for an anchor. Undistracted by battle, she noticed sensations she hadn’t before: the loose warmth of her muscles, the trickle of sweat at her hairline, the way she couldn’t seem to get enough air, no matter how hard she tried—and, because she’d never been in this precise position before, she noticed  _him_. The way her skin sang when his hand cupped protectively around the back of her neck; the catch of his trousers on her leggings when he shuffled a bit closer, igniting sparks that had nothing to do with magic and yet everything to do with it; the particular glint of his eyes in the lamplight, a look on his face that she hadn’t seen before.

He leaned down, using the hand on the back of her neck to tip her face up, up, up until she could no longer see him and the length of her throat was exposed. She whimpered, straining to get at her magic just to see how it would feel. It was further from her by far than it had been that morning.

"I can feel that, you know." She jumped at the proximity of his voice—his lips nearly brushed her ear—but the hand on the back of her neck did not allow her to move far. "I went easy on you this morning. This should hold much longer." His mouth touched the shell of her ear. "Breathe, Bethany," he reminded her, low and amused.

She obeyed; he pulled the dark fall of her hair into his fist and kissed the skin it exposed, just beneath her ear. She arched toward him, fingers tightening on his shoulders. It was…something, having the thing so integral to her completely stifled; she couldn’t put her finger on exactly  _what_  it was, too distracted by the absence and by Alistair’s hands on her to think of the appropriate word.

It was an illusion, but a pretty one—that she was as helpless as the average human, yielding easily to a man. No  _ordinary_  man, to be sure, but yielding nonetheless. There was no last resort at her fingertips, no force inside that could rescue her; when she reached for it, shoving with all her might at the wall separating her from herself, she could not touch it.

But no; there it was. Just a piece, the tiniest shred—

Beneath her hands, Alistair twitched. His mouth paused at the crook of her neck and shoulder. “You shocked me,” he commented wryly, his words tickling her skin.

Her fingers ached when she tried to uncurl them. “Sorry—”

The last hint of her magic, the bit she’d discovered, went dark. She gasped.

"You’re stronger than you think," he said. His hands dropped from her neck and waist to her thighs; without so much as a grunt, he lifted her onto his desk. Some of the reports scattered to the floor.

Her legs fell open; her hands dropped to his hips and pulled him between them. Despite her significantly lesser strength, he went where she bade him. There was some sort of victory in that, even if she wasn’t sure what it was.

He leaned down, hands meeting her waist, pulling their bodies together, and kissed her. She stopped reaching for her magic. His previous acts had seemed outrageously intimate, but this was something else entirely: her thighs hitched up around his hips, ankles crossed behind his back; his arms holding her up, preventing her from toppling backward; her hands running up into his hair, clutching him desperately to her while they kissed. She wondered if he could hear her heartbeat; it seemed to be the  _only_  thing she could hear.

His hands slid beneath her tunic, calloused and cool on her bare skin. She shivered, twisting into his touch. Heat pooled low in her belly; the muscles in her thighs quivered. He was hard against her, pulling little jerks of pleasure from her body with the slow roll of his hips. She whimpered, and he groaned in response, pulling her more firmly against him.

She curled her fingers around the hem of his shirt, breaking the kiss to order, “Off.” She tugged it up over his ruffled hair.

He had a lopsided smile on his face when he emerged from the shirt. “Bossy.”

She dragged a thread of her magic back to her—not without effort—and took advantage of his distraction, shocking him with crackling fingertips when they returned to his hip. He stifled the little ability she’d regained, dousing the lightning before it could grow. Her power severed all over again, she went limp in his grasp.

"That wasn’t very nice," he said disapprovingly, gently lowering her to the desk. He lifted the hem of her tunic slowly, his fingers leaving shivers in their wake.

"You liked it," she said, breathless.

He pressed a kiss to her stomach. “Well,” he said, words whisper-soft against her skin. “Maybe.”

She laughed, more wind than sound; he pulled her tunic over her head.

"Aren’t you worried about your reports?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at the precise handwriting she was currently laying all over.

He sighed. “Oh, all right.”

He pulled her upright and off the desk; with a squeak, she clutched his shoulders, thighs tightening around his waist.

"Have a  _little_  faith,” he scoffed, his arms firm around her. He carried her toward the door that led to his quarters while she clung to him. “Not a lot, mind you, but a little.”

She laughed, a little giddy, and loosened her hold enough to pull back, to press her mouth to his once more. His hands tightened on her bottom while his tongue opened the seam of her lips, deepening the kiss. He shouldered the door open, and it hit the wall with a bang. She gestured behind her, intending to push it closed with magic, but nothing happened.

"Leave it," Alistair muttered, trailing kisses from the corner of her mouth to her jaw. "The outer door is locked."

"You sneak," she whispered.

He set her down on the foot of his bed. “What? I didn’t want anyone barging in in the middle of our discussion—”

"Discussion, he calls it." She wiggled, adjusting her hips, and watched his face for the moment he felt her heat press against him. Though four layers of clothing still separated them—unthinkable, really—he closed his eyes at the contact.

"Soon, I hope to be discussing nothing at all, if that helps," he groaned. His fingers slid up her spine, then went to work on the hooks of her breastband.

She shuddered; her back bowed, whether to shy away from the touch or to squirm into it, she couldn’t tell. His touch on vulnerable points of her body seemed to have a particular effect. She could not imagine what it would be like once he was actually inside her. She went to work on the buttons of his trousers, hoping to get there sooner rather than later.

"No shocking," he murmured, feathering open-mouthed kisses down her neck.

"Have a little faith," she mocked, and tried to pull in the strength to generate any magic at all. The effort was in vain; she could feel him, like a fist in her chest, separating her from that particular weapon. "Besides, I’m gagged, remember? Totally helpless."

He chuckled, fingers tightening in the waist of her leggings and the band of her smalls. “I very much doubt that,” he said, tugging the fabric down her thighs. When he reached her boots, he pulled those off, too.

She slid back, toward the head of the bed, and he followed her up, leaving the remainder of his clothes behind. He paused over her hips, trailing fingers up the inside of her thigh. She inhaled sharply, squirming, and he moved his hand to her hip, pushing down to pin her to the bed. With his other hand, he urged her thighs apart.

She let her head fall back to the pillow. Watching was unbearable. She let herself be molded to where his hands guided her; she felt him hook her knees over his shoulders, sensed rather than saw him spread out on his stomach between her legs. The shock of sensation when his tongue traced her open couldn’t be braced for or against, though; she clenched her hands into the sheets, willing herself not to jerk up against his face.

"Alistair,  _please_.” The broken voice was hers, but she hardly recognized it; surely she had never sounded that wild, that desperate.

He pressed the broad flat of his tongue to her, drawing her wetness to where it was needed most, and there he circled, firm little movements around a bundle of nerves. Her fingers knotted harder in the sheets, but he reached up, tugging at one of her hands, and guided it to his head. Helpless to do anything but what he asked, she tightened her hold in his hair, her eyes falling shut, a choked moan on her lips.

Just when she thought she could take no more, that she would surely break at the next swipe of his tongue, he pulled away, leaving her bereft. Her fingers clenched in his hair, but he shook her off, rising up and over her body until his cock brushed against the inside of her thigh. She rose up enough to kiss him, tasting herself on his tongue, legs scrambling up to hook around his hips, and then he pressed against her and sank deep with a loud, hoarse moan.

She came, nothing more than the sensation of being filled and his pubic bone pressed to her clit necessary to unravel her, and the force of it was enough to bring her magic back, overflowing, surging from her veins. She had only the presence of mind to direct it, out, out  _out_  toward the hand still clenched in the sheets, and they burned beneath her fingers without any flame at all while she cried out, loud and wordless.

When her magic quieted again, he took the hand clenched in ash and pinned it above her head. “You’re going to owe me new sheets,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat, and started to move inside her, so slowly—a long, drawn-out roll like an ocean wave, always buried to the hilt in her at the end of each thrust.

She didn’t reply; she was too fuzzy, adrift in the lazy pull of pleasure rising in the wake of orgasm, to say anything at all.

But he was saying something, as she rolled her hips up to meet his; his voice was low in her ear. “D’you want me to—”

She shook her head. “I think I would die. I would at least pass out.”

He chuckled—the sound raised a shock of pleasure down her spine, magic or no—and then groaned when she tightened around him. “Bethany,” he said, her name like a curse on his lips, and then he was moving her. He slid his arm beneath her back and held her tight to him while he rolled, and when they stopped, she was above him, his cock deeper inside her than before.

His hands settled on her waist; his hips strained up against her weight. “Maker,” he croaked. “Bethany,  _please_ —”

She moved, using the muscle of her thighs to raise and lower herself; his hands tightened in her flesh, urging her on. She set an infuriatingly slow pace, or so it seemed by the way he tried to thrust into her, but she savored the slow drag of him, spreading her, filling her, tip to root. The new angle pointed the head of his cock directly at a spot inside her, one she had to work at to reach with her own fingers, and soon enough she had to lean forward, hands braced on the bed, so that she could quicken the roll of her hips. Broken words tumbled from her lips, pieces of words that fit together— _please_  and  _Alistair_  and  _oh, oh, yes, **yes**_ —and while one of his hands clenched hard enough to bruise around her hip, the other slid between them to work at her clit, providing a gentle pressure for the frayed bundle of nerves.

One thrust, then another, and she came apart; he followed, holding her hips still while he spilled inside her. Her magic, unrestrained, did not spill out this time—there was only the jerk of her muscles, a cliff of pleasure that she tumbled down until all was dark again.

She sank down to lay against his chest, quivering, and turned her face into the crook of his shoulder. His pulse throbbed just below her lips. He lifted his arms to wrap around her, gathering her close, and she closed her eyes.

They laid there until the sweat cooled and their breathing had slowed, and then she said, a little regretfully, “I think I need a bath.”

He laughed; she sat up, hips aching, and dismounted with what felt like the last of her strength, falling to the bed beside him.

"Good news," he said, rolling toward her. "I had water brought up earlier."

She sighed happily.

"Bad news," he continued. "It’s definitely gone cold by now."

She cracked an eyelid open and uncurled her fingers; in the palm of one hand, she called a gentle shiver of flames to life. The warmth washed over them both.

"I think I can do something about that," she said, smiling.

* * *

It was in the bath warmed by Bethany’s magic, when she was in danger of drifting off against the edge of the tub, that Alistair finally broached the subject that had brought them here to begin with.

"Feel better?"

Drowsily, she opened her eyes. His tub was huge—one of his few luxuries as Warden-Commander, he’d joked—and easily fit the two of them. He reclined across from her, head tipped back, slumped into the warm water.

"About what?" She tried to remember what he was referring to, but her body was too boneless to take interest, and her mind was in a similar state.

"The Silencing thing." He opened one eye to look at her, though it looked like quite a contortion of his ocular muscle to do it from that angle. She didn’t have the energy to giggle, but any other time, she would have. "You were worried about it, before we…" He trailed off.

She splashed a little water in his direction; it didn’t go higher than his chest. “Sex,” she said, grinning now. “The word you’re looking for is  _sex_.”

"I was trying to be delicate." He rolled his eyes. "So, are you? Feeling better about it?"

She considered this, propping her chin on her forearm. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was nice.”

"Maker," he groaned. "You do have a way of understating things."

She chuckled. “What, do you want poetry? I’m afraid you’ll need someone else for that.”

He returned the splash; a warm wave rose up her neck, sloshing out of the tub. “Stop deflecting,” he said. “I know that trick. I do it all the time.”

She sighed. “All right, then. I don’t know. I obviously like it. I enjoyed it. And it’s only ever happened with you, so I suppose it’s all right. But…”

"But?" he prompted.

"But doesn’t it seem…I don’t know. Like if I enjoy being deprived of my magic, I must hate that part of myself? That doesn’t sound healthy, does it?"

He watched her more closely now, eyes fixed on her face. She watched the bubbles. “You said before that you didn’t like your magic,” he said. “You have some good reasons, I’ll give you that, but do you want to know what I think?”

She waited, raising an eyebrow at the waterline.

"I think," he continued, reaching out to touch her cheek, "that the world we live in is unfair, and it’s given you a distorted view of things that are a natural part of you. And sometimes, it might be nice for you to just put that thing down." She looked up, even though her eyes were prickling dangerously. "Have a break, you know. It must be nice, if you meant what you said before, to let it go for a while. And that seems perfectly healthy, really, compared to the other stuff we get into."

She let out a watery laugh. “Perhaps you’re right.”

He leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Besides, if you weren’t a mage, I’d have had to walk all the way down to the kitchen to ask for more hot water, and it would have been embarrassing.”

"Yes," she scoffed, smiling, "it’s very convenient for you."

He leaned back, sinking a bit deeper into the tub. “You have to admit, it  _is_  nice.”

She closed her eyes, twining her legs around his, and let out a long, pleased sigh, which she hoped was answer enough.


End file.
